Tensions between Koreas escalate

North Korea will launch “merciless” strikes if South Korea goes through with planned live-fire drills near their disputed sea border, a North Korean officer said yesterday, amid persistent tension on the divided peninsula.

North Korea doesn’t want a war but its people are always ready to “dedicate their blood to defend their inviolable territory,” officer Sin Chol Ung at the North’s Korean People’s Security Forces said.

“We are monitoring every movement by the South Korean warmongers. If they provoke us, there will be only merciless retaliatory strikes,” Sin said.